We humans exist in and have consciously aware experiences in the terms of two distinct kinds of information: physical information and descriptive information. For example, when a pin pricks our finger we are consciously aware of the feel of pain as well as consciously able to describe the prick as painful. Physical information is manifest in the embodied orderliness of physical form and function—such as in the sensors and nervous system devices and their operations that make us consciously aware of the pain. Descriptive information is of an entirely different kind and exists as defined meanings within a system of linked symbols. Each kind of information can enable individual selfdom in its information terms. Body is the physical self; mind is the descriptive self. Among their many other capabilities, each self is consciously aware. But the nature of that conscious awareness is entirely different, occurring in each self's distinct information terms. Body is consciously aware in the information terms of its sensory representational devices. Mind is consciously aware in the terms of meanings arising within the defined relations of the symbol system constituting it. Symbolic representation rests on information assignment in which a physical object is assigned to represent something else, becoming a symbol token representing the assigned content. Symbol systems arise when multiple symbols are linked and defined in terms of each other. Users not only learn what the symbol denotes but also its descriptive meaning in the defined terms of the symbol system (such as those compiled in a dictionary). Since the choice of symbol tokens for information assignment is discretionary, descriptive information can be represented, conserved, and processed by any number of material means.
Unlike physical information which exists in the embodied orderliness of specific physical form and function, descriptive information is independent of the information of its material supports and can be enabled by any number of physical means: descriptive information is omniphysical. Because mind is a symbol-based system existing in descriptive information terms, it can be supported omniphysically. Among other things this opens the way for mind to be freed from a dying animal.